Savings

You don’t hear much about America’s personal savings rate these days, and the reason may be because the news is discouraging: collectively, the percentage of our income that we save is trending downward again, and may be about to hit record lows. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis tracks the U.S. personal savings rate, going back to the late 1950s, when people were setting aside around 11% of what they made. Americans achieved a record 17% savings rate in the mid-1970s before a long decline set in.